I don’t know why this happened, but it didis an autobiographical project exploring the experience of mental illness. It deals with a period of my life that began when, at age fifteen, I suffered a major mental breakdown and was subsequently diagnosed with severe clinical depression.

The piece is a handmade quilt, pieced together from silk-screened documents from my psychiatric file. They are a record in black and white, the primary documents of what I went through that say, “this happened”. For me the evidence contained in my medical records is validating and comforting.

The goal of this work is to translate a devastating experience into a cathartic one through the process of art making; to make sense of what happened to me, and ultimately come to peace with it. In a larger sense, the goal of this piece is to contribute to the discourse surrounding mental illness and to transform my own life experience into an aesthetic experience for the viewer.

Paula John is a multi-disciplinary artist and scholar based in Toronto. She has been exhibiting her work which icludes photography, film, painting, printmaking, textiles, installation, and performance, since 2003. She holds a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree in Photography and, a Master of Fine Arts degree in Documentary Media from Ryerson University, and a Master of Arts degree in Communication and Culture from York University. Some of the themes explored in her work include, gender, sexuality, feminism, and performance. Paula is currently working towards a Ph.D. in Theatre and Performance Studies at York University.

Curated by Helena Frei & Chris Mitchell, Hard Twist 10 Memorywinds its way through textiles, a constant thread that runs through the earliest archaeological fragments, the latest experimental synthetics and everything in between. Textiles hold memory, recall memory, record – and occasionally obscure – memory. In some recent incarnations they even have memory. Opening reception on September 10th 7-10pm on the 3rd and 4th floors galleries. On view August 27, 2015 to December 27, 2015 on the 3rd and 4th floors of the hotel.

Under the reign of Canada’s Maple Leaf, a documented 1200 Aboriginal women and girls have been murdered or gone missing. Flag of Tears has been created through series of public embroidery circles designed to invite participants into a conscious reflection on the consequences of our forgetful narratives of Canadian nationalism.

An artist, activist and scholar Helene’s work focuses on the role of public commemoration practices in constructing narratives related to militarism, nationalism and violence. Helene has performed her durational memorial meditations Impact Afghanistan War, Unravel, Haunting the Past’s Present, and Shot at Dawn throughout Canada, the U.S. and Europe.

Curated by Helena Frei & Chris Mitchell, Hard Twist 10 Memory winds its way through textiles, a constant thread that runs through the earliest archaeological fragments, the latest experimental synthetics and everything in between. Textiles hold memory, recall memory, record – and occasionally obscure – memory. In some recent incarnations they even have memory. Opening reception on September 10th 7-10pm on the 3rd and 4th floors galleries. On view August 27, 2015 to December 27, 2015 on the 3rd and 4th floors of the hotel.

“I have always loved paper, and started to find scratch tickets on a daily walk home from work. I began to think about the dreams in the moment of scratching the image away, the hopes, the desires. It made a hopeful noise. How sad it must have been to lose. Chuck it. Onto regular life again. I thought, let’s make something better with this mound of paper, shake all of the bad luck away. The work reflects creating an armor of dreamlike better world, and trying to rise above it. I would like to collect Canadian lottery tickets if possible.”

Rebecca Siemering was born in Omaha, Nebraska in 1974, and lives and works in Pawtucket, Rhode Island; she is a fiber artist, arts administrator and curator. For the majority of her career, she has explored the theme of “wanting the good life” utilizing found materials. Currently she is producing sculptures and textile art for her Lottery Project by taking a daily walk in the neighborhood and picking up thrown away scratch tickets. From her findings she creates animistic textile pieces and tapestries. Her methodical, yet compulsive style of stitch and needlework reflects the original obsession – to rise above the mundane, the sculpture embodying a soul that exists apart from the corporeal article of ink and pulp.

Curated by Helena Frei & Chris Mitchell, Hard Twist 10 Memory winds its way through textiles, a constant thread that runs through the earliest archaeological fragments, the latest experimental synthetics and everything in between. Textiles hold memory, recall memory, record – and occasionally obscure – memory. In some recent incarnations they even have memory. Opening reception on September 10th 7-10pm on the 3rd and 4th floors galleries. On view August 27, 2015 to December 27, 2015 on the 3rd and 4th floors of the hotel.

Computers store information entirely in zeroes and ones. “Bits” of information are stored in a computer’s memory through a binary system that was directly adopted from the invention of Jacquard’s punch card loom.

“In my Social Fabric series, I have used this history as a vehicle to understanding the complex relationships between humans and technology by altering digital images taken from Facebook and re-contextualizing them through the process of Jacquard weaving.

Facebook itself has become a way of remembering ourselves. It is a collective photo album created by, and for, a generation of people who want to share their experiences with the world no matter how mundane or extraordinary these events may be. My work engages the topic of memory both in how we use technology today to store, share and shape our identities through platforms like Facebook, as well as how the computer itself stores this information in a vast digital memory based in a system adopted from the Jacquard loom.”

Dylan Fish is a recent graduate from NSCAD University and will be pursuing his Masters Degree in Fiber and Material Studies at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago in the fall of 2015. He is interested in community, both online and in the real world, which manifests itself in his work, conceptually through his studio practice and practically through volunteering and outreach.

Curated by Helena Frei & Chris Mitchell, Hard Twist 10 Memory winds its way through textiles, a constant thread that runs through the earliest archaeological fragments, the latest experimental synthetics and everything in between. Textiles hold memory, recall memory, record – and occasionally obscure – memory. In some recent incarnations they even have memory. Opening reception on September 10th 7-10pm on the 3rd and 4th floors galleries. On view August 27, 2015 to December 27, 2015 on the 3rd and 4th floors of the hotel.

A hundred-year-old wool blanket is re-constructed, mended and edged with red wool thread. It holds absence and time. It’s about what is gone – but marks remain.

Judith e Martin holds a first class honours BA in Embroidered Textiles from Middlesex University in the UK and maintains a popular blog, Judy’s Journal. With 27 solo exhibitions in Canada and participation in over 100 group shows internationally, including Quilt National and Visions, Judith e Martin is an advocate for the power and beauty of hand stitch. She is a lifelong resident of northern Ontario, and along with her husband lives on Manitoulin Island in Lake Huron.

Martin’s work is grounded in the phenomenological idea that the sense of touch is the most effective way to make an emotional connection with others and she covers her surfaces with handmade marks. The tactile repetitions of her hand’s caress, the strength and weight of miles of thread and the amount of time it takes to make the individual stitches are a collective and direct communication with our inner world.

Curated by Helena Frei & Chris Mitchell, Hard Twist 10 Memory winds its way through textiles, a constant thread that runs through the earliest archaeological fragments, the latest experimental synthetics and everything in between. Textiles hold memory, recall memory, record – and occasionally obscure – memory. In some recent incarnations they even have memory. Opening reception on September 10th 7-10pm on the 3rd and 4th floors galleries. On view August 27, 2015 to December 27, 2015 on the 3rd and 4th floors of the hotel.

RE used as a prefix has many meanings. It can indicate doing something again, sometimes with the implication of doing it better, or in a different manner, or, it can mean turning around or back. Playing off the dictum, “Reduce, Reuse, Recycle,” these three-word books, made mostly from used fabrics or remnants, are short stories on the themes of memory and memory loss.

Lise Melhorn-Boe has been making funny, feminist artist’s books for almost forty years, using a light-hearted visual aesthetic to address personal and political issues affecting women’s and children’s lives and the environment. Her books are often sculptural – the visual object tells a story of its own.

Curated by Helena Frei & Chris Mitchell, Hard Twist 10 Memory winds its way through textiles, a constant thread that runs through the earliest archaeological fragments, the latest experimental synthetics and everything in between. Textiles hold memory, recall memory, record – and occasionally obscure – memory. In some recent incarnations they even have memory. Opening reception on September 10th 7-10pm on the 3rd and 4th floors galleries. On view August 27, 2015 to December 27, 2015 on the 3rd and 4th floors of the hotel.

The images represent how often coloured women are left out in feminist thought and how often white women are considered the voice for all women. Different coloured threads highlight different parts of the woman in the picture. The stitching around the shawl emphasizes her cultural and racial identity. The yellow and white threads highlight her features and represent the western cultural ideals of beauty, the construction of beauty through European ideals.

“We coloured women have different struggles and our fight for equality is not just gender based.”

Harneet Heer is a graduate of the Honours Fine Arts program at the University of Waterloo. She was born in Rexdale, Ontario to parents of Punjabi decent. Working primarily in soft sculpture and collage, she is most interested in exploring identity issues surrounding femininity, sexuality and race.

Curated by Helena Frei & Chris Mitchell, Hard Twist 10 Memory winds its way through textiles, a constant thread that runs through the earliest archaeological fragments, the latest experimental synthetics and everything in between. Textiles hold memory, recall memory, record – and occasionally obscure – memory. In some recent incarnations they even have memory. Opening reception on September 10th 7-10pm on the 3rd and 4th floors galleries. On view August 27, 2015 to December 27, 2015 on the 3rd and 4th floors of the hotel.

An installation work consisting of a street map of various locations in Montreal created using a woven network of string. The piece explores the central presence the homes of my parents; grand-parents; and aunt and uncle had on my early years, exploring themes of family, space, place and loss.

Rob Shostak is a Toronto-based designer whose practice crosses many disciplines. From high rise buildings to product design and graphic work, the cross-pollination between projects creates new problem solving strategies and ideas. In the summer he rides a bike with a planter on the back [#O2Wheels]. On Sundays during the winter you can find him curling.

Curated by Helena Frei & Chris Mitchell, Hard Twist 10 Memory winds its way through textiles, a constant thread that runs through the earliest archaeological fragments, the latest experimental synthetics and everything in between. Textiles hold memory, recall memory, record – and occasionally obscure – memory. In some recent incarnations they even have memory. Opening reception on September 10th 7-10pm on the 3rd and 4th floors galleries. On view August 27, 2015 to December 27, 2015 on the 3rd and 4th floors of the hotel.

“My work involves material concerns such as stretching, hanging, weaving, machine knitting and felting textiles. Through these processes I’m forming a concentrated look at the aesthetics of process and meaning through textiles. These processes and resulting works become metaphors for clothing, memory and a visceral look at textile-based materials.”

Andrew MacDonald is a graduate of The Ontario College of Art and Design, and holds a Masters of Fine Art from the University of Western Ontario. He has exhibited widely in Southern Ontario as well as in New York. In the summer of 2014 he took part in an artist residency at The Scottish Sculpture Workshop.

Curated by Helena Frei & Chris Mitchell, Hard Twist 10 Memory winds its way through textiles, a constant thread that runs through the earliest archaeological fragments, the latest experimental synthetics and everything in between. Textiles hold memory, recall memory, record – and occasionally obscure – memory. In some recent incarnations they even have memory. Opening reception on September 10th 7-10pm on the 3rd and 4th floors galleries. On view August 27, 2015 to December 27, 2015 on the 3rd and 4th floors of the hotel.

Reworn is a series of reconstructions of textiles based on old childhood photographs. They explore how the photographs we take distort and define our memories of people, places and things. They also contrast the intangible, fluid nature of memory with the static, anachronistic nature of photography.

Alec Sutherland:“I’m an artist who specializes in knitting and weaving and am currently studying at the Montreal Centre for Contemporary Textiles. I’m interested in the process, production, and perception of textiles in both historical and modern contexts. My work subverts the traditional ideas of function and style in craft.”

Curated by Helena Frei & Chris Mitchell, Hard Twist 10 Memory winds its way through textiles, a constant thread that runs through the earliest archaeological fragments, the latest experimental synthetics and everything in between. Textiles hold memory, recall memory, record – and occasionally obscure – memory. In some recent incarnations they even have memory. Opening reception on September 10th 7-10pm on the 3rd and 4th floors galleries. On view August 27, 2015 to December 27, 2015 on the 3rd and 4th floors of the hotel.